Alcoa will sell portions of its long-idled Massena East aluminum smelter in northern New York to a developer that plans to build a data center on the property, a transaction the company values at up to $315 million. Alcoa disclosed the definitive agreement in its third-quarter 2026 results on Oct. 15 and did not name the buyer. Cl
Wide aerial photograph showing the expansive industrial footprint of Alcoa's Massena complex along the St. Lawrence River.osing is expected within six months, subject to permitting and regulatory approvals.
The site has sat idle since 2014, when Alcoa shut the smelter. It covers roughly 1,300 acres along the St. Lawrence River at Massena and draws power from the New York Power Authority's St. Lawrence-FDR hydropower project, an interconnection that historically carried about 435 megawatts of smelting load.
Alcoa collects $50 million to $65 million at closing, then another $60 million to $250 million tied to permitted data center capacity and commissioning over as much as seven years, Manufacturing Dive reported. The sale is the first step in a plan to raise $500 million to $1 billion from surplus assets by 2030, and Alcoa says two more properties could follow.
"They are very interested in putting the maximum capacity within Massena East; the economics for them work much better as the facility gets larger," said William Oplinger, Alcoa's president and chief executive, on the company's earnings call.
That ceiling is high. Local filings describe a three-building campus drawing about 635 megawatts, more than any municipality along the Interstate 90 corridor and second in New York only to New York City, according to NNY360. None of that is settled. Data centers are not yet a permitted use in the town's industrial zone, and the developer has not secured a power purchase agreement with the state authority.
"The applicant is proposing a data center that will use approximately 635 megawatts of power for the site. That's the power for the three structures," said Jason Pfotenauer, St. Lawrence County's planning director. "They are proposing to build one new electrical substation. That's 200. We're looking at 635. Where's the other 435?"
Bloomberg reported in April that NYDIG, the bitcoin-focused firm owned by Stone Ridge, was in advanced talks for the site. NYDIG already holds a stake in Coinmint, which runs mining hardware at the former Alcoa East plant, and Alcoa has declined to confirm the buyer.
Baxtel tracks 124 data centers across New York State, operated by 65 providers, with the largest listed facility, Greenidge's Dresden plant, at 80 MW. The proposed Massena campus would be several times that.
For Alcoa, the math is simple: an idle smelter with heavy electrical infrastructure and a hydropower connection is worth more as a development parcel than as metal. What remains unproven is whether 635 megawatts can actually reach the site, and who pays for it. Until Massena amends its zoning and the developer secures firm power, the $315 million is a ceiling rather than a price.
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